Grieving grandfather still pushing for University Drive walkway

Eric Schultz / The Huntsville TimesA man runs across University Drive toward the Northwoods public housing development last month.

A man whose granddaughter was killed trying to walk across University Drive continues to press for a pedestrian bridge serving the Northwoods public housing area.

William Lynch is urging city officials to consider reusing Huntsville Hospital's old elevated walkway.

The Plexiglass-covered span was removed during the Governors Drive widening project in November 2008 and hauled to Don Kennedy & Sons House Moving lot in Madison, where it remains.

Lynch has spoken to company President Jeff Kennedy about the bridge and said it would be an affordable way to get Northwoods residents safely across seven-lane University Drive.

"We should do it before someone else gets killed," Lynch said Tuesday. "This is not about money; it's about saving lives."

But Lynch isn't finding much support for the idea at Huntsville City Hall.

City Councilman Will Culver said jaywalkers who ignore the two lighted crosswalks on that stretch of University won't take the time to climb several flights of stairs.

An $800,000 pedestrian bridge a few miles to the west serving University Place Elementary is barely used by the public and has become a magnet for vagrants, he said.

"In my opinion, it would be a useless overpass," Culver said Tuesday. "I'm not interested in that because it doesn't really solve the problem."

Last month, Northwoods residents shot down Culver's proposal to build a half-mile-long fence that would funnel pedestrian traffic to the crosswalks at Meadow and Arctic drives.

Culver said he still hopes to work with Huntsville police to educate children and adults in Northwoods about the dangers of jaywalking on University Drive.

Three pedestrians have been struck and killed in that area over the past decade: Lynch's granddaughter Lashun Lynch on April 3, 2009; Marion Bowman on June 21, 2003; and Louis Fletcher on Feb. 20, 2001.

Richard Kramer, the city's director of traffic engineering, said he agrees with Culver that a pedestrian overpass would not work in that location.

While the main span of the old Huntsville Hospital walkway is technically long enough, Kramer said the city would have to install 250-foot-long wheelchair ramps on both sides to comply with federal law.

"It is totally and sadly impractical," he said Tuesday.

Lynch isn't discouraged. He said he plans to start attending City Council meetings to push for an overpass.